Crucial week for New Bedford casino bid

Tuesday financial deadline, Wednesday forum, Thursday meeting all on slate for $650 million proposal

By Mike Lawrence
mlawrence@s-t.com

Posted Jun. 8, 2015 at 5:45 PM 

NEW BEDFORD — State gaming officials and the developer behind New Bedford’s casino bid declined to comment Monday on the status of a crucial financial deal that could move the $650 million proposal forward to a public vote June 23 or, if not signed, kill the entire deal before voters have their say.

Andrew Paven, spokesperson for New York-based KG Urban Enterprises, said developers would have no comment on the status of their key financial deal ahead of Tuesday’s 5 p.m. deadline.

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission set that deadline May 28, telling KG Urban operating partner Andrew Stern that failure to present a signed term sheet would be a “guillotine” for KG Urban’s application to build a casino, hotel and conference center development on New Bedford’s waterfront.

Commission spokesman Elaine Driscoll, asked Monday if commission enforcement staff had yet received a signed term sheet, said the state would not comment, either, until after Tuesday’s deadline.

KG Urban has been working to close a financial deal with its potential primary investor, Pennsylvania-based Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc (GLPI).

The commission likely will respond Thursday in Boston to whatever happens Tuesday.

Stern expressed confidence in the negotiations last week, saying “we’re going to have a term sheet” by Tuesday.

The financial issue didn't come up at a public casino forum Thursday evening at Roosevelt Middle School in the South End, where Stern presented site plans and answered questions about traffic and other concerns from about 30 attendees.

The next casino forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center downtown. The last forum scheduled so far is 6 to 8 p.m. June 17 at Normandin Middle School in the North End.

Wednesday’s forum is sponsored by Leadership SouthCoast and SouthCoast Media Group. The June 17 forum is sponsored by the city.

Casino discussions have been spreading outside of the forums as the June 23 vote nears. Last week at New Bedford Art Museum/Artworks!, during an event about efforts to create a collaborative art space downtown, longtime downtown advocate and property owner Jean Bennett expressed opposition to the casino proposal. She told a small crowd at the museum that she thought it was “disgusting” to propose “cutting off downtown from the waterfront” with a casino that would increase traffic on Route 18.

Stern, Mayor Jon Mitchell and other casino supporters have said the development would increase connections between downtown and the waterfront, though, citing the potential for spillover of restaurant patrons and shoppers.

The Host Community Agreement the city and KG Urban signed March 19 caps restaurant space inside the casino, requires the development to offer gift certificates and other incentives to visit downtown businesses, and creates a partnership with the Zeiterion.

A Brockton proposal by Mass Gaming & Entertainment is KG Urban’s only remaining competition for the single resort casino license the commission can allocate in Southeastern Massachusetts.

Brockton voters narrowly approved Mass Gaming’s $650 million proposal for a Brockton Fairgrounds site May 12, in that city’s referendum.

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20150608/NEWS/150609415

Gaming panel issues new casino deadlines

The only sensible solution!

Gaming panel issues new casino deadlines

By George Brennan

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

June 27, 2014

 

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has extended the deadline to issue a commercial casino license in Southeastern Massachusetts until the end of March and will accept bids from new casino companies until Dec. 1.

 

During their meeting Thursday, commissioners never mentioned the effort to repeal the casino law, which is now on the Nov. 4 ballot, but the new deadlines give potential applicants time to see how that plays out. Earlier this week, the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that voters should have an opportunity to vote on the repeal question.

 

The lone applicant in the region, KG Urban Enterprises, has not provided information about investors for a complete background check and was unlikely to meet the current Sept. 23 deadline or a July 12 deadline to have its suitability considered, Karen Wells, director of the commission's investigation and enforcement division, said.

 

With the new deadlines, commissioners are requiring KG Urban and any new applicants to provide "substantially complete" information for background checks by Dec. 1.

 

The deadline extension also could allow the loser in the Boston market — either Wynn Resorts or Mohegan Sun — to attempt to cut a deal in Southeastern Massachusetts, commissioners said.

 

KG Urban officials declined to comment and instead referred to the company's letter to the commission in anticipation of Thursday's vote.

 

"Allowing new applicants to late file a (phase 1) application would be unfairly prejudicial to existing applicants," Barry Gosin, one of the principals of KG Urban, wrote.

 

In his letter, Gosin supported an extension of the deadline, but for only 90 days and not the six months approved by the commission.

 

The commission also voted to allow applicants to include capitalized interest in the calculation of their minimum $500 million capital investments, noting the competitive nature of the region with a slot parlor slated for Plainville and two casinos in nearby Rhode Island. Commissioners stopped short of a proposal to include the purchase of land as part of the overall capital investment.

 

The decision to, in effect, lower the capital investment for a casino in the region had some commissioners wondering aloud if a casino can make it in Southeastern Massachusetts.

 

"If the market can't sustain a casino, then, we weren't told we had to do a casino here. It said we could do up to three," Chairman Stephen Crosby said. "Then the tribe comes along someday and, maybe, it pays us 17 percent rather than nothing."

 

Southeastern Massachusetts, known as Region C in the legislation that established gaming in the Bay State, is already behind two other regions of the state in the licensing process, in part, because of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's efforts to build a $500 million Indian casino in Taunton.

 

"The tribe remains focused on Project First Light," Paula Gates, a spokesman for the Mashpee Wampanoag, said in response to the commission vote.

 

The tribe is awaiting word on its application to have land in Mashpee and Taunton taken into trust.

 

The uncertainty has made it difficult for KG Urban to find financial backers and for a landowner in Bridgewater to attract a casino developer.

 

If a commercial casino is licensed in the region and the tribe gets federal permission to build a casino, the commercial venue would be at a competitive disadvantage. Commercial casinos are required to pay the state 25 percent of gross gambling revenue to the state.

 

Under a compact reached between the Mashpee Wampanoag and the state, the tribe would pay 17 percent of its gross gambling revenue to the state if it has the only casino in the region. If there is competition, the tribe pays zero.

 

The deadline extension buys the tribe time to get through the tangle of federal hurdles.

 

The commission received nearly a dozen comments from stakeholders in the region, the majority of them in favor of extending the deadline.

 

The Mashpee Wampanoag did not submit comments, but Cezar Froelich, an attorney for the city of Taunton, urged the commission not to extend the deadline or to open the region to potential bidders.

 

The market has shown that commercial casino companies are reluctant to enter the region with the tribe still a player.

 

"The winds are squarely behind the tribe's efforts to have its land-in-trust efforts approved," Froelich wrote. "There is nothing that has come before the commission other than the opinion of several 'experts' that could reasonably lead the commission to conclude the tribe will not have its application approved by the department."

 

City officials in New Bedford and Fall River supported deadline extensions, as did officials and the landowner in Bridgewater where there is no concrete proposal on the table. Both Fall River and Bridgewater officials suggested a tweak to the total investment required of potential developments, as well as a lowering of the application fees. New Bedford wanted the deadline to be after Nov. 14 so it could hold a citywide vote on Election Day, Nov. 4.

 

Follow George Brennan on Twitter: @gpb227.

 

 

 

 

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20140627/NEWS/406270335/-1/NEWSLETTER100

 

 

Pulling Back the Curtain on MA Casino and Slots Parlor Applicants

Pulling Back the Curtain on MA Casino and Slots Parlor Applicants

 

Posted by Bob Crawford on Friday, May 10, 2013

By Bob Crawford and Noah Spaulding
On March 28, 2013, the Boston Herald reported that Vornado Realty Trust, one of the largest shareholders of Suffolk Downs, was divesting its interests in Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, LLC (the Suffolk Downs related entity that had submitted an application for a Massachusetts casino license) because its executives were unwilling to submit to the background checks that are required as part of the application process. At the March 28, 2013 meeting of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, the Commission unanimously approved allowing Vornado to transfer its interests to a blind trust, over which Vornado would hold no control, so that its interest could be sold without slowing down the application process (noting that any prospective transferee of such interests would have to be willing to comply with the same background check requirements that Vornado had balked at). While the Vornado issue was resolved (other than lingering curiosity as to what specifically they were uncomfortable with disclosing), it served to highlight the depth and breadth of the background checks, as well as their importance to the process.

Questions regarding the need for the initial $400,000 application fee for Phase 1 applicants and the reasons why Vornado may have refused to participate in the background check process begin to become clearer when you see the scope of the Business Entity Disclosure Form and Massachusetts Supplemental Form (copies of which are available on the Commission website). The forms require extensive disclosure not only regarding the financial strength of each applicant and such applicant’s ability to follow through with their proposed casino developments, but are also intended to ensure each applicant meets the “high standards for good character, honesty [and] integrity”, requiring disclosures relating to dozens of topics including:

• Compensation of key executives and employees
• Current and prior personal investments
• Criminal history
• Whether any officer or executive has been asked to submit to a polygraph test
• Political contributions
• Fifteen years of residency information
• Motor vehicle license suspensions

205 CMR 116. Those provisions require that not just the actual applicant submit to the background check process, but also each director and officer of such entity, and, in the judgment of the Commission, any other member, shareholder, lender, employee, agent, executive or other related person. This is necessary because each of the applicants is a limited liability company, most of which were formed within the past year explicitly for the purpose of submitting a license application. Given the often complicated multi-tiered structure of many of the entities applying for licenses, the Commission was given broad discretionary powers to require disclosure from potentially hundreds of individuals and entities. On May 6, 2013, the Commission released the list of “qualifiers” for each applicant, those individuals and entities that are initially being required to submit to the background checks as part of the vetting process. For example, Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, LLC, the applicant with the most “qualifiers”, has 56 individuals and entities that are subject to review. Further complicating the process is that many of the “qualifiers” are foreign nationals or entities, such as Dubai World and Infinity World (Cayman) Holding, both “qualifiers” of Blue Tarp reDevelopment, LLC (better known as the MGM applicant). In addition to the disclosure forms, teams comprised of active Massachusetts State Police officers and experts from Spectrum Gaming and Michael & Carroll (which includes former FBI agents, forensic accountants and former prosecutors) are reviewing tens of thousands of pages of documentation and traveling as far as China to conduct interviews and investigations.

In 2009, in a 79-page Special Report to the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, prepared in connection with MGM’s plans to open a casino in New Jersey, significant questions were raised regarding possible ties to Asian organized crime of Stanley Ho, the father Pansy Ho, MGM’s proposed joint venturer. The comprehensiveness of that investigation, which involved several trips to China and Macau and 35 sworn interviews with 17 individuals and various international law enforcement agencies, provides an illustrative example for the current scrutiny of the Massachusetts casino applicants. While Stanley Ho was not directly involved in the proposed development, the report noted that ninety percent of the funds being committed by Pansy Ho were derived from her father, and the report concluded that she was susceptible to her father’s influence, and therefore an unsuitable partner. Neither Pansy Ho nor Stanley Ho is listed as a “qualifier” under MGM’s current application in Massachusetts, but these are the types of red flags that do not show up on the balance sheets of the applicants but will nonetheless be of great importance given the non-financial aspects of the Commission’s determinations on suitability.

Further complicating the issue of background checks is the fact that host communities, those cities and towns in which the applicants propose to build casinos, are actively engaged in negotiations with the applicants to approve the host community agreements which are a requirement for the approval of any application and the granting of a license. On April 22, 2013, the Commission promulgated an emergency regulation that prevents host communities from holding voter referendums until the Commission had made its suitability determinations. 

 

The regulation, however, contained some exceptions which allow for host communities to conduct public referendums prior to the suitability determinations, so long as the governing body of the city or town approves such action and take other steps, including an extensive public education campaign. However, the dangers of holding such a public vote are obvious, because even if an applicant enters into a host community agreement and receives the necessary public vote, their application might be deemed unsuitable as a result of issues uncovered during the background check process.

While the host community agreement negotiations, and potential public votes, are beginning to come together, the background checks are not expected to be completed for at least another month.

 

http://www.goodwingaming.com/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-ma-casino-and-slots-parlor-applicants

 

 

The Massachusetts Gambling Commission Scam

On April 18, the Massachusetts Gam(bl)ing Commission voted to allow the host communities schedule votes prior to the results of the financial/background analyses being finalized and made public.

... THE RESULT: What this means is that East Boston and Revere will be asked to vote on the proposed Suffolk Downs Casino BEFORE their financial background check has been completed.

They did this using the "emergency regulation" authority that state agencies have, claiming that it is in the public interest to move ahead as quickly as possible--regardless of whether or not we have all of the information we need about the investors-- with the vote. They cited pressure from the cities and towns and developers as the reason to move the process ahead and made light of the fairly significant concerns raised by groups like No Eastie Casino when asked what the hurry was.

This happened about 3 weeks after one of Suffolk Downs' largest investors, Vornado Trust pulled out because they didn't want to submit to background checks.

According to the Globe, "The gambling commission approved a transfer of Vornado’s shares Thursday to a blind trust over which the company will have no control. That is an interim step that will allow the track’s casino application to move forward while Vornado works to sells its interest “as soon as possible,” said Catherine Blue, the gambling commission’s general counsel."

THE RESULT. This means that the MGC is conducting a background check on on a blind trust, and East Boston Residents aren't even going to see the results of this analysis before we vote on Suffolk Downs' proposal.

The MGC is an agency set up to "strive to ensure that its decision-making and regulatory systems engender the confidence of the public and participants, and that they provide the greatest possible economic development benefits and revenues to the people of the Commonwealth"

Gaming panel withholds names of contenders for top post

Gaming panel withholds names of contenders for top post

By George Brennan

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

January 04, 2013

 

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is moving closer to choosing an executive director, but for now the names of the candidates are being kept secret from the public.

 

"We have our finalists for executive director in background checks right now," Chairman Stephen Crosby said during the commission's Thursday meeting. "We will be bringing them in for public interviews as soon as we have background checks done."

 

In the Bay State, names of job finalists for municipal and state posts are a matter of public record.

 

"Once finalists have been selected and forwarded to the governing body for its consideration, their identity is a matter of public record," according to the Massachusetts Recruitment Guidelines Handbook, published by the Massachusetts Municipal Management Association and the International City/County Management Association.

 

After the meeting, commission spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll refused to release the names of the finalists or their resumes, saying in an email they will be kept private until the background checks are completed. Later, she followed up with an email saying the candidates are not yet considered finalists, even though that's what Crosby called them during the meeting.

 

"Chairman Crosby is enthusiastic about the progress being made in the commission's important search for an executive director," she wrote. "Potential candidates are not yet considered finalists. It is a misstatement to characterize potential candidates as finalists at this time. Background checks are a necessary prequalifier to determine if a potential candidate will advance to becoming a finalist. The commission looks forward to sharing that information when available."

 

She declined to say under what exemption of state public records and open meeting laws the names are being withheld.

 

The gaming commission, as a public entity, operates under the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law.

 

The Times is appealing the commission's decision to withhold the candidates' names with the state's public records division.

 

The commission also announced Thursday that two potential developers turned in the necessary paperwork to begin initial background checks. They are among three companies that have paid the $400,000 application fee and submitted supplementary materials.

 

As many as seven other companies have requested detailed information and could still apply for the preapproval process by the Jan. 15 deadline, Driscoll said in an email, although one of those companies has already bowed out of contention.

 

As for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and Southeastern Massachusetts, neither was mentioned during the board's first meeting of the new year. KG Urban Enterprises, a developer hoping to build a New Bedford casino, had issued a plea for the commission to reconsider a decision to give the tribe three more months to clear some of its federal hurdles for an Indian casino in Taunton.

 

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130104/NEWS/301040331/-1/NEWSLETTER100

 

Far more to the story....

than simply a failure to prosecute, the Gam[bl]ing Commission's bad judgement and a blinded Governor Slot Barns Patrick who has concealed corruption.

What was done to silence the charges against Stan McGee?

Privilege and corruption prevented justice from being served. And no one asked.

From: Inconvenient “distractions” for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission

Still no justice done in case of gaming panel pick

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | letters

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

July 27, 2012

• 

Carl Stanley McGee quit as head of the state gaming panel amid controversy. (EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF HOUSING…)

How disturbing that a public relations consultant to the governor and the state Gaming Commission joined state officials in failing to take seriously the allegations that Carl Stanley McGee sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy in a Florida resort steam room in 2007 (“ Gaming pick reaction misjudged, e-mails say,” Page A1, July 20).

Police and child abuse experts who interviewed the boy determined he was credible and recommended that criminal charges be filed. A subsequent investigation by Florida’s Crimes Against Children Unit recommended that McGee be prosecuted. The Florida county prosecutor declined to pursue the case.

Massachusetts officials then gave McGee an easy pass. In the spring, public relations consultant Karen Schwartzman confidently declared, “Stan already has been through the ringer for a charge he didn’t commit.” When McGee stepped down from the Gaming Commission to avoid further controversy, Governor Patrick said, “I hope he’ll come back” to serve in state government.

McGee’s leaving state government doesn’t end the story, certainly not for the boy, now a young adult, who remains steadfast in his accusations and who hears with every proclamation of McGee’s innocence, the charge that he, the alleged victim, is lying.

If state officials won’t ask, then citizens must: Why did the Florida prosecutor drop the case despite expert advice to the contrary? What role has influence, money, and politics, both in Florida and Massachusetts, had in protecting McGee? He may have been a darling of the administration as a casino gaming expert, but in the eyes of an innocent boy on vacation with his family, McGee remains that stranger who is getting away with a sexual assault.

Jetta Bernier
Executive director
Massachusetts Citizens
for Children
Boston

http://articles.boston.com/2012-07-27/letters/32867430_1_sexual-assault-state-officials-state-government

Massachusetts 'GAMING' Future

Bill Kearney posted in United to Stop Slots in Mass. (USS-MA)

Bill Kearney 11:05am May 13 Massachusetts 'GAMING' Future Boston Globe - May 12, 2012 Patrick vetoes mandated background checks on future gambling panel staff Governor Deval Patrick vetoed Friday portions of a spending bill sent to him this week by the House and Senate requiring the Gaming Commission to conduct full criminal background checks and drug screenings on future employees. Read more: http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-12/metro/31670256_1_background-checks-spending-bill-veto Now here's the importance of criminal background checks and drug screenings on future Gaming Commission employees and a few examples of what to expect from pro-casino lawmakers and those who in Massachusetts who will be making a living when squabbling for the scraps from the casino operators table. People like the Chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, Stephan Crosby, who is just another Gaming Chairperson in our country who will willingly be manipulated by casino operators and pro-casino lawmakers. In my state of Pennsylvania it was Governor Rendell who got casino gambling passed in 2004, and in 2006 he appointed a former police captain, Frank Friel, to head the Pa. Gaming Control Broad, (PGCB). "Frank Friel was made for this job - a respected law man with years of fighting organized crime under his belt," said Governor Rendell. "I can think of no one better to serve Pennsylvania on this Board.” The following month it was announced that Friel would step down because of his alleged ties to Mafia figures. Rendell appointed another one of his cronies, a lawyer by the name of Thomas “Tad” Decker. He chaired the (PGCB) for a three-year term. After leaving the Board he became the President and CEO of one of the largest law firms in Philadelphia. His firm represents two casinos here in Pennsylvania, Sugar/House Casino and Mount Airy Lodge and Casino. Rendell replaced Decker with the Honorable Mary DiGiacomo Colins. She had 30 years of experience in the legal profession. She was elected to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in 1989 after being hired by Rendell as an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia. Back then Rendell was the Mayor of Philadelphia. Colins political connection with Gov. Rendell dated back to 1985. After serving her three year term Rendell appointed Gregory Fajt to chair the Gaming Board. Fajt is the third guy from the left in the picture I posted that was taken at the Grand Opening of the Sands Casino Hotel in Bethlehem, PA, June 9, 2011. There were many dubious characters that were influential in getting casino gambling legalized in Pennsylvania. Gov. Rendell was the main one but then there was Senator Vincent J. Fumo who back in 2004 was one of the most powerful figures in Pennsylvania politics. On February 6, 2007 Sen. Fumo and three of his aids were indicted on numerous charges of tax offenses, obstruction of justice, mail fraud, wire fraud and use of Senate employees as campaign aides. Today Fumo is known as inmate #9818783. Then there was pro-casino State Rep. Bill DeWeese, State Rep. Mike Veon, and House Speaker John Perzel who today are also serving time in prison for crimes against the State Pennsylvania. Then there were those with strong political connections who PIMPED themselves out in order to get our GAMING LAW passed. One was Gregory Fajt who back in 2004 was Pennsylvania's Secretary of Revenue. He left that position and became Gov. Rendell's Chief of Staff. In 2009 Rendell appointed him Chairman of the PGCB. Fajt lost his Chairman position after Rendell term was up and a Republican named Corbett became Governor, but he is still on the PGCB. Gov. Corbett was our Attorney General and it was no surprise after he became governor that he appointed Bill Ryan to chair the PGCB. Ryan was Corbett’s Deputy Attorney General for six years and when Corbett was running for governor he acted as, ‘Attorney General.’ I have had many discussions, some that got quite testy with the first three Chairpersons, but I have yet to talk with Chairman Ryan and it’s not because I haven’t tried. Chairman Ryan ducking me has many in my state confused and that’s because the Republicans from day one have been supporting my cause especially my casino monthly statement legislation. But it’s not strange to me and that’s because I know once the Republicans got on the tits of the casino cash cow they’d be whistling a different tone. Here is another photo of Gregory Fajt when he was PGCB Chairman speaking with the owner of the Sugar/House Casino in Philadelphia, Neil Bluhm. This picture was taken as Philadelphians demonstrate outside Bluhm’s property, before the groundbreaking ceremony for his new casino. http://specials-images.forbes.com/imageserve/05Ga8eu2cbbhp/620x434.jpg?fit=scale&background=000000 The video below is also from the 2009 Sugar/House Groundbreaking ceremony. In it you will see another PGCB member, he's the former FBI agent Kenneth McCabe. He's the second guy from the left wearing a white helmet and with shovel in hand. - http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=7055328 Now if you don't believe what I'm saying is true, click on the videos links below, and see for yourself if this 'VICE' known today as Gaming isn't already doing to your state what it has to mine. Chairman Gregory Fajt April - 2004 1 - http://billkearney.blip.tv/file/707578/ 2 - http://billkearney.blip.tv/file/707461/ 3 - http://billkearney.blip.tv/file/707518/ 4 - http://billkearney.blip.tv/file/707554/ November 2006 1 - http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4169169 2 - http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4169330 May, 2010 1 - http://billkearney.blip.tv/file/3677458/ 2 - http://www.blip.tv/file/3360231/ February - 2011 1 - http://blip.tv/bill-kearney/gregory-fajt-pa-gaming-control-board-chair-4738567 June - 2011 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYWYHB1T48 Chairwomen Mary Colins October 2007 - http://blip.tv/file/708064/ January 2008 - http://blip.tv/file/708029/ Chairman Thomas Tad Decker 1 - http://blip.tv/file/708454/ 2 - http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4185089 Gov. Tom Corbett on Gaming when he was Attorney General. 1 - http://blip.tv/file/721116 2 - http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=4184748 3 - http://blip.tv/file/828040 Click on the link below and listen to Gov. Rendell opinion on CASINO MONTHLY STATEMENTS. http://www.blip.tv/file/3218156/ To learn more about my credentials on this subject go on line and Google-up Bill Kearney on casino gambling.